Letters: Chasing net zero leads to financial harm, not environmental gain

The Gisborne Council's net-zero by 2030 plan was discussed by councillors at a Sustainable Tairāwhiti meeting last week. Photo / Zita Campbell

Opinion

OPINION

Is it possible to have a council that deals with reality? Their recent deliberations over net zero (November 28) are alarming.

No one wants to damage the planet deliberately, but chasing a false notion whilst committing financial hari-kari must be a definition of insanity.

Indeed, much of the Western world is retreating from this path, as the goal is absurd.

The planet has surpassed the mystical 1.5C threshold, and nothing bad has happened. Fewer storms, fewer fires, and less drought, but greater crop yields and a rapidly greening planet. What is not to like about that picture?

There is little to suggest that the recent rise in CO2 is man-made other than a speculative idea based on a dubious correlation. Correlation is not causation.

CO2 fluctuated greatly long before man started burning fossil fuels, but all that seems forgotten. Indeed, the planet’s current CO2 is historically low, but some refuse to acknowledge that truth.

A scientifically proven anathema to climate activists is that further increases in CO2 will lead to far fewer increases in temperature, as this relationship is logarithmic.

Starting from a low level of 280 parts per million (ppm) − with levels below 150 ppm not being life-sustaining − naturally, the initial increases would have the most effect. It is estimated that a doubling of CO2 from today will increase the temperature by just 0.1C. Yet, climate activists demand that the Western world spend many trillions trying to change something we simply can have little/no effect on.

We cannot play God as much as some like to think. Ironically, some of the “sustainable” options developed today are the greatest polluters and environmental destroyers.

Legacy media are highly complicit in this duplicitous deception, along with IPCC, UN and numerous other globally woke institutions. Continuing along the current path of net zero will lead only to ruin.

Iain Boyle

Coalition Māori relations

After watching TVNZ’s Q&A interview with Jack Tame on Sunday, I’m wondering if Christopher Luxon and David Seymour agreed on a third way with Māori relations. This would allow Seymour to push his agenda of significant disruption. At the same time, Luxon and Peters could proceed with removing references to the Treaty from legislation, department names, and specialist Māori agencies. It appears that both wish to nullify the Treaty and rights, their coalition agreement would satisfy both of them.

Mary-Ann de Kort

Love is what the world needs

What a great Christian comment by Cynthia Kearney (Worship services, November 30). Negative and unkind thoughts or comments never benefit anyone including the originator. You cannot have love and hate in the same mind at the same time. What we think determines what we experience. The thoughts that we send out either return to bless us or condemn us. In the words of the Beetles − “What the world needs now is Love, Love, Love.”

Heather van Wyk